August 05, 2011

Three years ago, as reported in a previous post, anti-legal-outsourcing attorney Joseph Hennessey and his Maryland law firm filed a lawsuit against India-based Acumen Legal Services, as well as then-President George W. Bush, in Washington D.C. federal court, claiming that offshore legal outsourcing involves an invasion of privacy. Hennessey and his firm sued on the basis of speculation that the government was intercepting the data sent by U.S. counsel to foreign legal process outsourcing companies, as part of an anti-terrorism campaign. Based on that speculation, the Maryland firm sought a court order against “all United States-based attorneys” who outsource legal work to India, and against "all foreign legal outsourcing providers."

13 days after Acumen filed its motion to dismiss, drafted by a team of Indian lawyers at SDD Global Solutions in Mysore (with further assistance from the team at Acumen), the plaintiff law firm withdrew its case.

Now Mr. Hennessey has a new law firm, and he's shifted his sights from legal outsourcing to US financial institutions, while making the same allegations against outsourcing to India. In June, he filed a class action lawsuit against American Express. Two days ago, he sued Bank of America. "By routing Plaintiffs' [financial information] to foreign national personnel residing overseas, Bank of America affects a forfeiture of the Constitutional and statutory rights that constrain the surveillance by the United States Government," the class alleges.

It seems this attorney is less than thrilled with outsourcing to India. For more information on his latest adventure in anti-outsourcing litigation, see the article on law.com today.

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Seems like hogwash to me, but if Mr. Hennessey has really been injured, wouldn’t the more appropriate relief be for the court to enjoin the NSA from collecting the data?